Drama – Page 24 – The Magnificent 60s

Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) ****

Unholy triumvirate of director Vincente Minelli, star Kirk Douglas and screenwriter Charles Schnee had been here before, eviscerating Hollywood in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Now, while the locale has shifted to Rome, Hollywood-on-the-Tiber, the behind-the-scenes battles are, if anything, even more fraught since careers are on the slide.

Burnt-out washed-up star Jack (Kirk Douglas) is duped by washed-up director Maurice (Edward G. Robinson) into thinking he is going to revive his career with a supporting role in a low-budget movie made at Cinecitta. In reality, Maurice wants Jack to oversee the dubbing, time restraints preventing the director doing this. Jack and Maurice have history, good and bad, making some fine pictures together, but inveterate womanizer Maurice bedding Jack’s wife Carlotta (Cyd Charisse).

Carlotta, divorced from Jack, now living in Rome and married to a shipping magnate, wants Jack back, if only to keep her bed warm while her husband is away. Young beauty Veronica (Daliah Lavi) dumps temperamental boyfriend and fading star Davie (George Hamilton), in favour of Jack. Maurice is having an affair with his latest find, the tempestuous Barzelli (Rosanno Schiaffino), so brazen she strokes his legs while he toasts his wife Clara (Claire Trevor) at a dinner to celebrate their tenth anniversary. Clara is prone to attempting suicide.

So far, so melodramatic. But instead of explosive melodrama, it’s more about insecurity and the honing of the cutting line. We know enough about vicious Hollywood in-fighting so none of this will come as a surprise, but it’s still astonishing the depth of self-deception on display that occasionally flowers into genuine insight. Maurice may be ducking and diving in the last chance saloon but he still knows how to disarm a young man with a knife. Not sure Jack giving Barzelli a kick in the pants would be deemed an acceptable method of calming down a screeching star. And you won’t get much kudos for a line like “all women are monster.”

But there are nuggets of Hollywood lore. Barzelli being forced to keep her arms in a certain position for a shot, for example, that actors doing the dubbing require direction, the shifting around of scenes, the producer already guaranteed profit through pre-sales before the movie is released, the endless rewrites, and of course that career rejuvenation brings actors a sudden jolt of power. And there’s a car ride that matches Hitchcock for sheer terror, regardless of the fact it is shot with back projection.

Fame as we all know is an illusion, but so is success. The famous are notoriously lonely. What’s hardest to get your head round is failing to notice when your career is on the slide. Being so wrapped up in your notion of invincible self, to which, while you are successful, all pander. There’s some lovely stuff about the collusion of audience and moviemaker, both hiding from reality.

But it’s a true adult drama, far superior in many ways to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) or Babylon (2022), avoiding the excesses of both, while homing in on character fragility, weakness exacerbated under pressure. In the end all make concession, some beating a tune of self-awareness. Even Maurice accepts he needs his wife to provide him with grounding and self-belief. The aloof arrogant Davie has to beg Jack not to steal his girl. Jack learns to ignore adulation.

If you like long speeches and elegant camerawork and confident direction this is for you. There’s plenty attendant glamor, but mostly it’s characters coming apart and putting themselves back together again, with or without a side order of bitchiness.

The acting is uniformly top-notch. Kirk Douglas might be auditioning for The Arrangement (1969), in which he essays a similar ambitious talent coming unstuck, but here he underplays, to the picture’s benefit, the early scenes when he’s still working out why he has fallen out of favor, and who he now is, just outstanding. But Edward G. Robinson’s (Seven Thieves, 1960) callous insecure monster runs him close. And the petulant performance by George Hamilton (Angel Baby, 1961) had critics purring and the industry predicting great things.

But it wouldn’t be anything without the believable women, all convinced their version of themselves will win favor. Cyd Charisse (Maroc 7, 1967), the female equivalent of the predatory Maurice, Claire Trevor (The Cape Town Affair, 1967) with suicide the preferred option to divorce, and especially Daliah Lavi (Some Girls Do, 1967) who gives Hollywood splendid notice of what she can do away from the sex symbol persona she was later lumbered with. Rossano Schiaffino has a ball as the sex symbol who views powerful men as playthings.

This was Vincente Minnelli’s fourth film with Kirk Douglas and just like Anthony Mann with James Stewart and John Ford with John Wayne or, more recently, Antoine Fuqua with Denzel Washington, draws a greater maturity from the actor. Charles Schnee wrote the screenplay based on the Irwin Shaw bestseller.

Sure-footed, bitchy as hell, hard-hitting, honest and unmissable.

Elmer Gantry (1960) *****

Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life as the eponymous burnt-out salesman finding financial redemption in the salvation business in Richard Brooks’ riveting examination of the revivalist boom. While replete with hypocrisy, old-style religion brought succour to the rural poor, but the director takes such an even-handed approach to the subject matter, carefully nurturing a marvellous parade of characters, that you are totally sucked in.

Brooks made his name adapting famous novels but only here and In Cold Blood (1967) does he exhibit complete mastery of the material. In fact, he pulls out a cinematic plum in having the audience, who might initially have mocked the obvious manipulation of the poor, suddenly taking the side of the itinerant preachers when they come up against the more sophisticated religious operators in the big towns.

Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) has some previous in the preaching business, but only for as long as it took for him to be chucked out of divinity school for seducing the principal’s daughter, so when by accident he comes upon a touring revivalist meeting he discovers his metier as a fast-talking brazen preacher. He doesn’t quite usurp the star of the show, Sister Sharon (Jean Simmons), and in fact their styles complement one another, he preaching hell and damnation, she the love of God.

Beneath the demure guise, Sharon is anything but a push-over. Not only does she see through him right away and consistently knock him back but she is quite the businessperson, though her methods of keeping civic officials in line often rely on blackmail. But then who are the hypocritical, allowing speakeasies and prostitution to run rampant, to attempt to rein in revivalists who need account to no one for how they spend their revenue?

Eventually, of course, Elmer’s ardent wooing wins over the virgin Sharon who easily forgives his dalliance with her doe-eyed follower Sister Rachel (Patti Paige). Burgeoning romance is scuppered by a chance encounter with prostitute Lulu (Shirley Jones), the principal’s daughter. That’s just the spark needed for anti-religious fervor to take over and the enterprise ends in disaster.

But what’s so good about a film that could as easily just relied on taking pot-shots at religion is that Brooks gives equal space to the good and bad in each character. Sure, Elmer’s confession of his sins might be construed as a seduction device, but that’s tempered by a genuine ruefulness and remorse over his previous actions. And while his grand-standing in front of an audience could be interpreted as merely an actor revelling in a role, you can see that religion has as easily taken over him and provided him with an identity that he finds rewarding. He might still be a salesman but he’s selling the hell out of the product.

Sharon’s uncanny hold over a congregation may be a true skill, and she’s definitely a believer, but that is borne out of fiction. She has reinvented herself, given herself a new name and identity, that furnished her with business opportunity in a male-dominated world, but love of God has come at the expense of love of man.

Perhaps what’s best about the picture’s construction is the array of supporting characters. Journalist Jim (Arthur Kennedy) might appear the pick, ingratiating himself with the touring company only to write a searing expose, but drawing the line, and incurring the wrath of his editor, at writing the kind of tawdry tale he believes is a fabrication. While still holding a torch for Elmer, Lulu has none of the cliché prostitute’s heart of gold. Initially rejected by Elmer, she goes along with a scheme to bring him down, only to change her mind and change it again, left only with remorse.

And Brooks manages to weave in a ton of detail, sometimes in dramatic fashion, such as the church elders in big city Zenith debating the value of backing the revivalists (the touring operation usually signs up hundreds of people to local parishes), and sometimes just as background, such as when Jim dictates his front-page lead in the newspaper office, whipping it off a page at a time to throw in front of the editor.

There’s also a little-commented-upon affinity between Shirley and Elmer. She, too, is coming to the end of the line. She is approaching burn-out. The endless travel, the responsibility for her payroll, financing accommodation, dealing with officials, seeing all the people she has returned to the fold being handed over to local churches, is taking its toll. And she wants the stability of her own church, where she can soothe her congregation on a weekly basis and live a more temperate life.

If ever a movie suited Burt Lancaster’s physicality, this is it. Allowed to channel his inner dominance, every gesture overpowers and by the same token makes him more potent when at his most abject. Lancaster (The Swimmer, 1968) was in a rich vein of form that would see him deliver a series of majestic performances throughout the decade. He deservedly won the Oscar.

Jean Simmons (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) is, effectively, both a villain, duping everyone by her creation of Sister Sharon, and the epitome of the American Dream, a girl from shantytown who makes her way bigtime. Shirley Jones (Two Rode Together, 1961) is afforded more dramatic beats and hers is a sure-footed performance, leading you to believe she will react one way and then go another. Oddly, Arthur Kennedy (Joy in the Morning, 1965) missed out on adding to his five Oscar nominations for supporting actor.

Nothing in this movie has aged. If anything, this was way ahead of its time in daring to pick holes in organized religion (The Cardinal and The Shoes of the Fisherman were a good few years away and in The Night of the Hunter a few years before Robert Mitchum only posed as a preacher).

Extraordinary movie by Richard Brooks at the top of his form.

Secret World (1969) ****

Jacqueline Bisset is the big draw here. After breaking into the Hollywood bigtime with female leads in The Detective (1968) and Bullitt (1968) she put her newfound marquee weight behind a low-budget French arthouse picture. But ignore the marketeers best efforts to present this as malevolent in the style of The Innocents (1961) or the illicit template of The Nightcomers (1971) or Malena (2000).

No children were corrupted in the making of this picture. Instead, it’s a slow-burn thoughtful exposition of a child coming to terms with loss and a young woman discovering she is more than a mere sexual plaything. Any explosive drama comes from father-son rivalry but mostly it’s a reflective, absorbing movie that follows twin narratives, the attraction of the orphaned introspective 11-year-old Francois (Jean-Francois Vireick) to the English mistress of his uncle Philippe (Pierre Zimmer) and the damage her arrival causes to a fractured household.

*The leather glove oveprlays its hand in the poster, suggesting a great deal more sexuality*
*than is actually the case, but nonetheless – and take this as subtle – creates*
*an element of ambiquity about the demure Wendy.*

Astonishingly, given its arthouse credentials – long takes, glorious cinematography, brooding close-ups – this was the final film for both directors (no idea why there were two) Paul Feyder (in his debut) and a sophomore effort from Robert Freeman (The Touchables, 1968). Given a screenplay by regular Polanski collaborator Gerard Brach (Wonderwall, 1968) and an intrusive heavy-handed score, you get the impression of two separate movies struggling to fit a single canvas.

On the one hand, you’ve got a perfectly acceptable romantic intrigue, Philippe and son Olivier (Marc Porel) fighting, sometimes metaphorically (games of chess etc), sometimes physically (a punch-up), over the woman, passed off as the daughter of a wartime colleague, and a wife Monique (Chantal Goya) refusing to stand on the sidelines, switching hairstyle to blonde and employing various wiles to prevent the affair. While the male rivalry is overt, the wife’s manipulations are more subtle.

On the other hand, you’ve got the lonely boy, who indulges his imagination, spinning tales of monsters in a lake and spies in the vicinity, mostly ignored by his relatives, hiding out with a pet rabbit in a treehouse, occasionally filching small items, creating a crown out of a stolen brooch and pieces of tree bark. There’s a lot that’s presented without explanation. For example, a couple of months after his parents died in a car crash that he alone survived, he mopes around in a jumper full of holes, either a sign how little his adoptive parents care for him, or perhaps the item of clothing he was wearing the day his mother died.

You can view his behavior – creeping into Wendy’s room at night when she’s asleep – as creepy or just the hankering of a small boy after a substitute mother. But mostly, he lives a life of wistfulness, longing for what he once had, unable to fit into a household split by various emotions. When he snips a lock of Wendy’s hair, or snaffles a bottle of her perfume, it’s to add to his little box of mementoes rather than from any underlying sexual motive. And it’s hard to view his growing feelings for Wendy as early stirrings of sexual attraction. When at one point he falls asleep on her bosom, you couldn’t interpret that as anything more than maternal instinct.

That’s not to say there isn’t tension. But that’s almost entirely played out in the context of father, son and wife. Francois is a welcome gooseberry defusing the unwelcome attentions of Olivier, whose overtures Wendy constantly thwarts. Olivier, well aware of the role Wendy plays in her father’s life, mocks his mother’s attempts to hold onto her errant husband. Wendy, meanwhile, abhors the role she is forced to play, the trophy mistress, and reacts in maternal fashion to the lonely child.

Excepting the intensity of the father-son relationship, the screenplay underplays while still developing character more fully than you might expect.. The child is as manipulative as his aunt in finding ways to spend time with the object of his affection.

Mostly, this has been dismissed as a poor example of the French arthouse picture or as a Bisset vanity number or for illicit elements than never catch fire. But, in reality, it’s a superb character study set in an unromanticised French countryside – rats need shooting, for example, massive tray of cheese served up for dessert rather than the grand wine cellar you might imagine a chateau to contain, or clothes or other ostentatious examples of wealth.

There is so much that is incisively ordinary. Philippe insists on measuring the boy’s height. Monique drops her chilly façade to help the newcomer get rid of a wasp. The arrogant Olivier loses all credibility when he runs away from a gang. The children play out childish rituals. Francois douses the rabbit in Wendy’s perfume so he can keep the smell of her close.

The secret world here is four-fold, the one Philippe foolishly and brazenly attempts to maintain, the one Olivier hopes to possess, the one Francois enjoys and the idyll from which Wendy is shaken out of.

The direction is very confident, none more so, oddly enough, than in the only sex scene, which takes place primarily off-screen, although with the lascivious involvement of a leather-gloved hand.

Rich in detail, supremely atmospheric, well worth a look.

A Fine Madness (1966) **

Let’s start with the Hollywood happy ending. Poet Samson (Sean Connery) slugs pregnant second wife (Joanne Woodward). He’d have punched her lights out before if only she hadn’t been so good at diving out of the way. As it is he manages to throw her down the stairs. The film kicks off with him ill-temperedly whacking her over the head with a pillow.

This is the kind of film where violence against women is treated as a running gag.

*Let’s try to sell it as a wacky comedy*.

Lydia (Jean Seberg), wife of psychiatrist Dr West (Patrick O’Neal) treating Samson for writer’s block, doesn’t have the courage to make it plain to his creepy colleague Dr Vorbeck (Werner Peters) that she doesn’t fancy him when he endlessly paws her and slaps her rear so he takes this as the green light to attempt to rape her. That’s another running gag.

Surly loud-mouthed bully Samson gets a free pass because he’s an artist, a poet with one poor-selling volume of poetry, and unable to find the time or space to complete his masterpiece. He would have more time if he didn’t spend so much of it chasing women.

At my count, he gets through at least four – Lydia, office secretary Miss Walnicki (Sue Ann Lngdon), a client (he cleans carpets for a living) Evelyn (Zohra Lampert), and Dr Kropotkin (Collen Dewhurst), another colleague of Dr West, not to mention the current wife he drives demented and the previous wife for whom he is being aggressively pursued for alimony.

You can see how director Irvin Kershner was a shoo-in for The Flim-Flam Man/One Born Every Minute (1967) because at every opportunity he tries to turn simple dramatic confrontation that enhance the story into needless chases that divert it and extract slapstick from material that in no way suggests it’s ripe for such an approach.

*Trivia lovers note: The John “Redcap” Thaw in the supporting feature “Dead Man’s Chest” is the same John Thaw from “The Sweeney” and “Morse*“.

There’s a story in here somewhere and a pretty barmy one at that if you set aside the poor poet’s endless battle against a world that fails to understand his genius and his dodging of the alimony. Rightfully diagnosed as some kind of sociopath by yet another of Dr West’s colleagues, the needle-happy Dr Menken (Clive Revill), he is admitted to a psychiatric hospital initially as a way of dodging his creditors and providing him with space and time to write.

Again, his most creative use of his time is to make out with Lydia and Krokoptin. But since he is spotted in a hydro-bath/ripple bath with naked Lydia, the vengeful husband gives the go-ahead to perform some kind of lobotomy on the poet, on the assumption it will dull his violent tendencies. (It doesn’t work.) The opportunity to satirise the psychiatric profession takes second place to another opportunity for a chase.

Anomalies abound. Samson’s character is clearly drawn on Welsh poet Dylan Thomas who exploited his fame and made his money on recital tours. Performing is against the broke Samson’s principles and he turns viciously on his audience of appreciative women. Despite demanding center stage, when offered it he turns it down. He lambasts middle-aged women but has little against those younger members of the species more susceptible to his charms. He only has to tell Miss Walnicki she has “pouty lips” and she falls into his arms.

All this has going for it are the performances. Sean Connery (Marnie, 1964), it has to be said, certainly exhibits screen charisma though this is not as far removed as he would like from the macho James Bond. Joanne Woodward (From the Terrace, 1960) – switching from her normal brunette to blonde – is excellent as the downtrodden waitress wife, but on the occasions when she is spiky enough to put him in his place soon regrets her temerity.

Jean Seberg (Pendulum, 1969) – switching from blonde to brunette and paid more ($125,000 to Woodward’s $100,000) – is good as the sexually frustrated rich housewife. And Patrick O’Neal (Stiletto, 1969) looks as if he is desperate to throw a punch. Elliott Baker (Luv, 1967) wrote the screenplay based on his own novel.

You do sometimes wonder at the knuckle-headedness of stars. Was this all that was offered to Connery at his James Bond peak? Or was it a pet project? I doubt if it would have been made with another big star – you couldn’t see even the macho Steve McQueen entering this territory and the likes of Paul Newman wouldn’t go near it.

Theoretically, studio head honcho Jack Warner gets the blame for this. He didn’t like Kershner’s cut and ordered it re-edited but I’d be hard put to see how his hand could be any less heavy than that of the director.

That’s two stinkers in a week. If you want proof of just how rampant sexism was in Hollywood check out a double bill of this and A Guide to a Married Man (1967).

An insult.

Meg 2: The Trench (2023) ** vs The Dive (2023)

Once you get over the notion of Jason Statham as an eco-warrior, and alternating between grumpy and cuddly step-dad, and that the eco-goodies are actually hypocritical eco-baddies, pillaging the depths of the ocean for the equivalent of Avatar’s unobtainium, and the top scientist who keeps a captive Megaladon in check by what looks like dog-training techniques, and the usual gobbledegook sci-fi anomalies, you are in for a hell of a ride as a trio of Megs start chomping down on the kind of witless holidaymakers who peppered the likes of Piranha 3D.

There are neat references to Jurassic Park and nods to Chinese rather than American culture, especially in veneration of the old, and the action, once it surfaces from the gloomy depths, is breath-taking. Perfect summer popcorn material. You can pretty much ignore the MacGuffin, whose sole purpose is to ensure the Megaladons are freed from climactic imprisonment – the “thermoclime” – in the Mariana Trench.

Given there’s a fair bit of plotty-plot-plot to get through it’s just as well we kick off with action. Jonas (Jason Statham) ingeniously bursts out of a container on a merchant ship dumping hazardous waste and having captured on film the evidence he requires is scooped from the ocean like a drowned rat by a seaplane with giant jaws. Deep-sea exploration company owner Jaining (Wu Jin) has teamed up with billionaire investor Hillary (Sienna Guillory) to make further forays into the aforementioned trench.

On a routine dive in a far-from-routine submersible, Jonas’s teenage step-daughter Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) stows away so when the crew discover an illicit mining operation and that the captive Meg has escaped and teamed up two other Megs, the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s a bit murky down below and despite the various oohs and aahs of the explorers nothing really stunning on view. Still, that’s not what we’re here for, and luckily Avatar-style visuals take second place to more action as Jonas, striding along the trench floor in exosuit, has to save all from the ruthless mercenary Montes (Sergio Peris-Mencheta).

But, really, this a mere prelude to what’s going to happen once everyone, creatures included, surface. The Megs are slick operators, keeping tight formation as they tear through the water. Fancying a tourist snack, the creatures home in on Fun Island. Jonas has his work cut out saving the innocent rich from the quartet of predators and a bunch of nasty prehistoric amphibians while fending off Hillary and her gang of thugs.

It’s certainly inventive enough and occasionally light-hearted and the action is spread out among the various participants, Meiying proving a chip off the old block, and no romance this time getting in the way. Heartless villain Hillary is despatched in the most obvious homage to Jurassic Park and the climax, as you might expect, is Jonas going one-on-one with any alpha male, whether Montes or the gigantic creatures. Explosives taped to harpoons, explosives made out of fertilizer, and helicopter rotors are among the improvised weapons.

While you couldn’t accuse it of being thoughtful, and you might even consider it a shade cynical in its use of eco-activism, it never takes itself seriously, which means it’s just a whole load of fun. Go looking for anything more meaningful or more cinematic (a la Steven Spielberg) and you’re wasting your time. But who, really, would make such a mistake. The popcorn is calling.

Certainly, compared to arthouse cop-put The Dive it’s a work of genius. This purported anti-blockbuster resorts to info-dumps to create any sort of suspense. By the time you’re halfway through you’re desperate for a shark, octopus, manta-ray, demon of the deep, to gobble up this hapless pair of divers, sisters Drew (Sophie Lowe) and May (Louisa Krause). If it had the conviction of its arthouse credentials, there would have been a tragic ending, the incompetent Drew unable to save the resourceful, efficient, May, trapped underwater by an unexplained rockfall.

The falling rocks manage to bury their rucksacks, including car keys, but magically miss the jetty yards away. For no earthly reason except it fits the story, May can’t open the car boot to find a tire lever. For no earthly reason, as an experienced diver, and although her life depends on it, she doesn’t know how to properly attach an oxygen tank. And quite how, in her bewilderment, and in murky depths, she manages to find the trapped sister time and again is baffling. And when she does find the solution to releasing her sister it’s one of those daft ideas straight out of Apollo 13 that you sit there questioning. Naturally, there’s a pocket of trapped air underground just when it’s most needed.

But, mostly, Drew’s running around like a headless chicken and for some reason that detracts rather than builds suspense. Half the time we’re getting info dumps, not of the time-running-out variety, but on how far down they are and what you’ve got to do avoid the bends. But you discover less about the characters than in The Meg 2, and care even less. Drew is grumpy, disillusioned for some reason, while May is sparky and enthusiastic and any time the supposed suspense gets too much director Maximilian Erlenwein cuts away to their carefree childhood or to a conversation that is meant to have hidden meaning.

Rotten Tomatoes critics rate The Dive (69%) above Meg 2 (30%) but audiences, who know better, go the other way, 73% for the monster-filled concoction, 50% for the monster-free bore.

Red (2008) ****

Not that Red. Not that Brian Cox. In fact, this slow-burn low-key character-driven revenge drama preceded both the Bruce Willis-Morgan Freeman-Helen Mirren-Brian Cox actioner and the elevation of Cox to small-screen megastar via Succession. And, of course, it was made long before everyone was selling their soul to streamers. So, it’s odd just what a perfect fit it makes for watching on television.

Don’t expect the loud-mouthed arrogant bully of Succession or the sometime scene-stealing that went with being an under-employed supporting actor for most of Cox’s career and think back to the quiet intensity of Manhunter (1986) and you get a pretty good idea of how this is pitched.

Widower Avery (Brian Cox) is enjoying a quiet spot of fishing accompanied by his dog Red when his idyll is interrupted by shotgun-toting tearaway Danny (Noel Fisher), his brother Pete (Shiloh Fernandez) and buddy Harold (Kyle Gallner). On finding the old man doesn’t have enough cash on him to fund a decent meal, Danny shoots the dog.

Now, legally, there’s not much you can do Stateside when someone murders a dog, bearing in mind this is in the days before John Wick found an illegal solution to the problem. Pinning a $100 fine or a few days jail time is as much as Avery could reasonably expect. But in Smalltown USA when the culprit’s father is well-connected unreasonable businessman McCormick (Tom Sizemore), legal recourse or even journalistic exposure is going to be hard to come by. An apology, any sign of remorse, might swing it as far as Avery is concerned but not only is McCormick disinclined to believe his son is guilty of such a misdemeanor, he’s likely to come out fighting.

Although an ex-soldier, and despite possessing a neat little armory of his own, Avery isn’t Rambo-inclined. But he can’t let the random death alone, especially because the dog was a gift – again John Wick-style – from his wife before her unexpected death. And even this would probably not trigger much more than a severe grinding of the teeth or hitting the bottle except McCormick ramps up the stakes, driving Avery off the road and burning down his business. Even then, Avery would probably settle for a smattering of justice, not a fire-fight.

If McCormick or the kid had any idea just how diligent Avery is – he does his own detective work and proves an expert in hand-to-hand combat – he might have backed off but then that would have meant acknowledging parental responsibility and a son going awry. What’s so interesting about this picture beyond that it avoids the slam-bang approach, is the subtlety. Avery knows all about wayward children and that tragedy from his own life is seeded into the narrative without taking it over.

Similarly, it doesn’t dive down the rabbit-hole of a crusading journalist. When small-time reporter Carrie (Kim Dickens) does come into the scene, she’s not promising Pulitzer Prize glory, recognizes that McCormick will have more pull than her with her bosses, and for the most part she’s the necessary ear for the reclusive Avery to unload his pain.

Social media might well have done the narrative trick. Imagine local horror at seeing a well-to-do businessman tarred-and-feathered across social media, the do-gooders would be up in arms. But that’s not an option here. And although Carrie is more hard-bitten than Avery would like, she’s not hard-bitten enough to exploit his previous tragedy as a way of getting her story on the front pages of every newspaper in the country, even if it was only for the irony of the situation.

Nor, despite them sharing a companionable drink, and Carrie clearly liking the old buffer, is there any suggestion of budding romance, or if there is, that’s also hovering on the periphery. One glance at John Wick and you note the dramatic traps skipped over. Only one false step – the trite ending.

So, instead of full-tilt boogie action, we have a thoughtful drama presenting the various deeper shades of Brian Cox that generally remained hidden for the bulk of his career.

When it turned up in the “new release” section of Amazon Prime, I mistakenly imagined this was a new movie cashing in on Cox’s late-career newfound fame and imagined it was another project churned out in Streamerland. I tuned in with expectations of Cox cashing in on said fame, but was surprised to find a finely-wrought drama rather than a crime thriller.

Kim Dickens (Gone Girl, 2014) follows Cox’s low-key approach but Tom Sizemore (Breakout, 2023) can’t resist over-acting. Noel Fisher, in case you wondered, found fame in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014 iteration).

Two directors were involved so I’m assuming Lucky McKee (The Woman, 2011), who was fired, wasn’t so much responsible for the dark-lit look as Trygve Allister Deisen, in his only movie so far. Jack Ketchum (The Woman ) and Stephen Susco (The Grudge, 2004) worked out the screenplay.

Fascinating performance by Brian Cox in an story that takes the interesting rather than easy route.

Baby, The Rain Must Fall (1965) ***

Nothing to live on but dreams and, in those days, no social media to bail them out. Spare sad lives in Small Town U.S.A. told with an occasional grand guignol touch. Look elsewhere for the laconic loner of Steve McQueen legend, to, for example, The Cincinnati Kid, out the same year.

This has the feel of a vanity project, the actor’s Solar outfit taking a production credit, as if the star felt he wouldn’t properly be recognized as an actor unless he had a ton of lines to chew through. And he might be right to feel aggrieved, wildly contrasting roles from Daniel Day-Lewis in movies that opened the same day in New York two decades later had critics reaching for the superlatives.

By my reckoning, this was the last year, save for occasional outliers like In Cold Blood (1967), when studios accepted the hi-falutin’ notion that filming in black-and-white added artistic luster regardless of the damage it might do to a picture’s commercial prospects. The mono approach is taken to extremes from time to time, the contrast so sharp it might have emanated from the Ingmar Bergman school of cinematography. And given the desultory lives picked over, this might have fared better with subtitles, the kind of foreign picture that arthouse audiences fawned over.

Prison parolee Henry (Steve McQueen), entitlement hormone running amok, has got it into his head that if only he had the funds to reach Hollywood or Nashville (either would do) his singing and song-writing talent would be recognised. This puts wife Georgette (Lee Remick), newly arrived with small daughter, in the position of going out to work to keep the family, altering her domestic situation from independent single mother to wife in thrall to waster husband.

She’s supposedly no dupe either, rejecting the kindness of strangers, as if aware it usually comes with strings attached. It’s a given that any time a child enters a romantic equation you can be sure the narrative will turn on parenthood and responsibility. And that’s pretty much all the story there is.

You can guess from the outset that while Henry’s singing might set a few female hearts zinging, it’s not likely to win him a contract. So the question is, really, whether Henry can settle down and not be so swift to resort to his knife when confronted with a messy situation.

It’s marred by a couple of truly terrible scenes, a poorly-choreographed fight and a really odd sequence that has Henry declaiming with his back to a tableau of motley characters with the contrast at its sharpest. And in what looks like nothing more than an old haunted house.

It’s well-meaning enough and for the most part McQueen dispenses with the tough-guy attitude, but he doesn’t really offer enough in its place. It’s the kind of role that could easily have been delivered as effectively by any number of actors with nothing approaching his star quality. And that’s a shame because he really is trying – though it’s the trying that gets in the way, you keep on waiting for the real Steve McQueen to turn up.

If director Robert Mulligan (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) hadn’t been so determined to paint it in downbeat arthouse tones, the actor might have felt free enough to come up with a genuinely original turn. Though I accept it’s a bit unfair to complain about McQueen attempting something different, there’s no real excuse for him creating the worst singer ever to hit the screen.

You might also note, by the way that whereas McQueen takes pole position on the poster, in the screen credits Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) is top-billed. Remick is better than McQueen because she has a deeper well of emotions and wider range of characterizations to choose from. You never feel she is acting to save her career or hope that Oscar voters might nod in her direction.

The movie makes more sense once you understand it really belongs to the 1950s – the Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962) Broadway play on which it is based was staged in 1954. The movie fatally switches focus from Georgette to Henry before working out which actor was likely to best convey the happiness drought on which the work depends. There’s more than enough sadness to go round but it just seems solidified from the outset. No great harm – that may well be the truth of it – but it prevents the movie taking off, stuck as it is in recycling Henry’s weary past. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) makes a good fist of a widowed sheriff.

Worth a look to see McQueen tackling something different. You decide whether he succeeds or fails.

Thank You All Very Much / A Touch of Love (1969) ***

The combination of Amicus and pregnancy might lead audiences to expect a monster baby of It’s Alive (1974) dimensions. Nor would you associate the studio, which made its name in horror pictures where women were either victims or sex objects, with feminism. But producer Milton Subotsky plays it straight, the only concession to the Margaret Drabble source novel is to change the title, from the obvious The Millstone to the more ironic Thank You All Very Much (in the U.S.) and A Touch of Love (in the U.K.).

It doesn’t go down the single mum kitchen sink route either, abandoned female struggling in poverty and desperate for a man. In fact, except in one instance, dependable men are in short supply. Though, it has to be said, female support isn’t much better.

*Now there’s counter-programming. A “woman’s picture” supported*
*by low-budget actioner aimed at men.*

Pregnant after a one-night stand with television personality George (Ian McKellen), post graduate student Rosamund (Sandy Dennis), after toying with home-made efforts at abortion, decides to have her baby. Luckily, she can afford it, living in a splendid apartment in what looks like South Kensington rather than a bedsit in a more squalid area of London. Her parents are more remote, tending towards the upper rather than the middle classes, the type who park their offspring in boarding school to minimize a child’s impact on their busy social lives.

Sandy Dennis (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) has quite a trick in her screen persona. She is generally initially presented as weak, whiny, vulnerable, trademark quavering voice helping this along, a potential victim until her inner steel exerts itself and you realize she is not the person you think she is. Almost an actorly version of the Christopher Nolan trope of letting you believe a character is one type of person until he/she turns out to be another.

There isn’t too much of the mother being tormented out of her skull by a baby screaming its head off – or as in Nolan’s latest opus Oppenheimer, a mother unable to cope handing the child over to someone else to look after – but she is very much alone, unable to reveal to the father his part in the pregnancy, despite having another one-night stand with him. So mostly it’s her coping with the system, suffering in silence in the traditional British manner endless bureaucracy, sitting in a long queue in a waiting room, and being beset by the very people you might expect to be more sympathetic.

*Supporting feature given more prominence here.*

But the nurses seem very much cut from the same pragmatic cloth as her parents. Prior to birth, one nurse informs her that it’s selfish not to give the child up for adoption. When the baby is convalescing in hospital after a heart operation, matron (Rachel Kempson), a graduate from the Nurse Ratchet school of health care, consistently refuses to let the mother see the baby as it’s apparently against hospital rules until in the best scene in the movie, and the one that achieves the Dennis trick, she literally screams the place down.

That nurses on a maternity ward full of little more than I would imagine at times screaming children are so disturbed by the prospect of an adult rebelling against the stiff upper lip conventions of British society says a great deal about the kind of uniformity and subservience expected of the public by those in charge of any large organization. None of the Angry Young Men of earlier in the decade would dream of such a simple solution to a problem.

Eventually, being allowed to sit by her child’s bedside until late into the night permits Rosamund to complete her thesis and win her PhD. She’s not quite as hard-nosed about George as she likes to imagine but since he’s not sufficiently taken with her child to allow it to disrupt a projected trip abroad, she realizes what had been plainly obvious to the audience that she is better off without men – or at least this particular, ineffective, individual – for the time being.

So most of the film is about Rosamund learning to enjoy her independence, able to achieve her goals without male assistance, and that’s generally done by action rather than dialogue or monologue, some heated debate or major crisis. Excepting the incident with Nurse Ratchet, it’s just about coping, and awareness that maternity need not cramp ambition.

Her arty friends (and parents for that matter) are all too keen on having a good time – the males mostly trying to bed her – to lend much support. Some like Lydia (Eleanor Bron) have a warped view of life.

In his movie debut Waris Hussein (The Possession of Joel Delaney, 1972) takes the striking narrative route of not allowing the picture to become tangled up with romantic complication, keeping it squarely focused on feminism, succeeding on your own terms, not reliant on men, embracing both motherhood and career. Margaret Drabble wrote the screenplay.

Sandy Dennis (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) delivers another telling performance, one of the few actresses permitted to be center stage in a non-romantic narrative, because this is the kind of role she can easily pull off. She manages a convincing British accent without falling prey to too much Britishness.

Minus the tell-tale diction that marked his later career, Ian McKellen (Alfred the Great, 1969) has an effective debut as the charming though selfish lover. Eleanor Bron (Two for the Road, 1967) is the pick of the supporting cast as the soft-hearted best friend who is too pragmatic by half. Others popping up include John Standing (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966), Margaret Tyzack (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), Maurice Denham (Midas Run, 1969) with Rachel Kempson (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968).

Unfussy direction matched with another brilliant turn by Sandy Dennis makes this a must-watch.

Angel Baby (1961) ***

Stunning cast – George Hamilton, Burt Reynolds, Mercedes McCambridge, Joan Blondell – in low-rent version of that ode to evangelism Elmer Gantry (1960) but here focusing on misplaced zeal and corruptible innocence. Strikes a contemporary note with “MeToo” reversal – elder woman grooming a choir boy – and fake news, how else to describe public gullibility for the so-called miracles that were the stock-in-trade of the revivalist business.

Would have been an interesting addition to the portfolio of the erratic director Hubert Cornfield (Pressure Point, 1962 a high, but Night of the Following Day, 1969, a low) except he took ill and passed the reins to Paul Wendkos (Guns of The Magnificent Seven, 1969).

Takes an interesting narrative slant, the three original principals bowing out after a strong start, leaving the way free for the titular character to come unstuck in the sleazy world of religious make-believe before they all turn up again for a rip-roaring finale.

Young charismatic preacher Paul (George Hamilton) is at odds with his dominating older wife Sarah (Mercedes McCambridge). She is all hellfire-and-brimstone while he wants to preach about love. They are in an “unholy marriage,” he plucked from the choir as a teenager and molded by her, her invocations to prayer always accompanied by sex, and once Jenny Angel (Salome Jens), a mute he heals and with an unwelcome boyfriend Hoke (Burt Reynolds), appears on the scene he begins to question his sexual and religious grooming.

Recognizing a love rival, Sarah bribes ambitious couple, resident alcoholics Mollie (Joan Blondell) and Ben (Henry Jones), to take her on and they, in turn, trade her to Sam (Roger Clark) who turns her unfulfilled potential as a preacher into box office dynamite by capitalizing first on her beauty, low-cut gowns emphasizing her physical attributes, and then by fake healings, not realizing, in his greed, that a preacher who can make reputedly make the blind see is asking for trouble.

Having seen the error of his way, Paul chases after Angel, Sarah chases after Paul and Hoke just happens to be in vicinity to ensure it all ends in colossal disaster, though with an unusual twist ending.

But it’s surprisingly good in an old-fashioned way. The depiction of the corrupt evangelists and, more importantly, the spiritual and actual poverty of the congregations, desperately looking for salvation, occasionally blaming God for their woes, and hoping sheer blind faith will see them through, is well done, even if Paul’s preaching sails close to the unsavory, with rather lewd accompaniments.

Jenny’s conviction in the face of initial failure that she can bring solace to the people is also believable. All innocence, no idea she is being duped, she simply perseveres, undaunted at the scale of her task, faced with dozens of critically-ill expecting cure.

Sam’s real scam is selling some kind of miracle potion that Jenny has apparently endorsed, the phone ringing off the hook with customers wishing to buy it once the preacher’s fame spreads. He, too, despite apparently God-fearing ways, is partial to liquor.

Given Jenny never doubts her vocation, you’d expect an innocence-sized hole at the center of the drama, but that’s filled up by the growing conflict between Paul and Sarah and a very humorous section dealing with the idiotic Mollie and Ben, especially in an inspired drunken scene.

It could easily have been a more cynical take on the dumb audience, so easily taken in, but instead, they are presented as individuals at the end of their tether with nowhere else to go but the Almighty in the hope that the burden of living terrible lives will be eased. How easily they are manipulated is no surprise.

George Hamilton (A Time for Killing, 1967) is unrecognizable, not just in the acting which at times has the charming creepiness of Anthony Perkins, but because, since this is made in black-and-white, he is devoid of his usual inches-thick tan. I was reminded a lot of Carrie (1976) in that Piper Laurie’s portrayal of the obsessed mother appeared modelled on that of Mercedes McCambridge (99 Women, 1969) as the scary wife and in Sissy Spacek’s imperturbability as she strides through the chaos she has caused that was a throwback to the gait of Salome Jens (Seconds, 1966) as she walks unharmed away from the wreck of her work.

Except for her physical presence, Jens isn’t given sufficient contemplation to make her stand out, and to some extent is just an object of other people’s satisfaction, but is at her best when clearly puzzled that, believing herself touched by God, her initial ministry fails to take off.

Burt Reynolds (Fade In, 1968) makes the kind of debut that would have gone unnoticed had he not a decade later transmogrified into a superstar. Hollywood Golden Age star Joan Blondell (Model Wife, 1941) has a sparkling turn as the blowsy alcoholic who invents Jenny’s stage name of Angel Baby.

Paul Wendkos makes the whole thing work by concentrating on two-character scenes, limited movement creating intensity, that works equally well for conflict and humor, while deftly managing the crowd scenes and pulling off the unexpected ending. Took considerable effort to knock Elsie Oakes Barber’s novel into shape, three screenwriters, neophytes in the main, involved – Orin Borstein in his debut and only screenplay, Paul Mason, no other screenplay credit until The Ladies Club (1986) and Samuel Roeca (Fluffy, 1965).

An interesting watch, not just for the cast, but as a reminder that it’s never too difficult to dupe a willing audience.

The Adventurers (1970) ***

Class A Trash. Adaptation of Harold Robbins (Nevada Smith, 1966) bestseller goes straight to the top of the heap in the So-Bad- It’s-Good category. Only Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) as a double-dealing revolutionary comes out of this with any honors.

The likes of Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970), Rossano Brazzi (Rome Adventure/Lovers Must Learn, 1962), double Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland (Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, 1964), Leigh Taylor-Young (The Big Bounce, 1969) and Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch, 1969) must have wondered how they were talked into this.

And director Lewis Gilbert (Loss of Innocence/The Greengage Summer, 1961) must have wondered how he talked himself into recruiting unknown Yugoslavian Bekim Fehmiu (The Deserter/The Devil’s Backbone, 1970), nobody’s idea of a suave lothario, for the lead.

One of the taglines was “Nothing has been left out” and that’s to the movie’s detriment because it’s overloaded with sex, violence, more sex, more violence, in among a narrative that races from South American revolution (in the fictional country of Corteguay) through the European jet set, fashion, polo, fast cars, orgies, and back again with revenge always high on the agenda. At close on three hours, it piles melodrama on top of melodrama with characters who infuriatingly fail to come to life.

Sensitivity is hardly going to be in order for Dax (Bekin Fehmiu) who, as a child after watching his family slaughtered and mother raped, makes his bones as a one-man firing squad, machine-gunning down the murderers. From there it’s a hop-skip-and-jump to life as the son of ambassador Jaime (Fernando Rey) in Rome where he belongs to an indulgent aristocracy who play polo, race cars along hairpin bends, swap girlfriends and, given the opportunity, make love at midnight beside the swimming pool.

His fortunes take a turn for the worse when his father backs the wrong horse, the rebel El Condor (Jorge Martinez de Hoyos) in Corteguay, and is killed by the dictator Rojo (Alan Badel). In between an affair with childhood sweetheart Amparo (Leigh Taylor Young), life as a gigolo and cynical marriage to millionairess Sue Ann (Candice Bergen), Dax takes up the rebel cause, initially foolish enough to fall for Rojo’s promises which results in the death of El Condor, and then to join the rebels.

But mostly it’s blood, sex, betrayal and revenge. Anyone Dax befriends is liable to face a death sentence. He only has to look at a woman and they are stripping off. It’s a heady mess. It might have worked if the audience could rustle up some sympathy for Dax, especially as he was entitled to feel vulnerable after his childhood experiences. But he just comes across as arrogant and the film-makers as even more arrogant in assuming that because women fall at his feet that must mean he had bucketloads of charm rather than that was what it said in the script. He’s fine as the thug but not convincing as a lover.

Excepting Badel, the best performances in a male-centric sexist movie come from women, those left in Dax’s wake, particularly Candice Bergen as the lovelorn wife and Olivia De Havilland as the wealthy older woman who funds his lifestyle, aware that at any moment he will leave her for a younger, richer, model. Lewis Gilbert is at his best when he lets female emotion take over, not necessarily wordy intense scenes, because Bergen and De Havilland can accomplish a great deal in a look.

The rest of it looks like someone has thrown millions at a B-picture and positioned every character so that they have nowhere else to go but the cliché.

By this point, Hollywood had played canny with Harold Robbins, toning down the writer’s worst excesses and employing name directors to turn dire material into solid entertainment. Edward Dmytryk (Mirage, 1965) had worked wonders with The Carpetbaggers (1964), whose inherent salaciousness was held in check by the censor and made believable by characters played by George Peppard (Pendulum, 1969), Alan Ladd (Shane, 1953) and Caroll Baker (Station Six Sahara, 1963). Bette Davis and Susan Hayward contrived to turn Where Love Has Gone (1964) into a decent drama. Even Stiletto (1969), in low-budget fashion, managed to toe the line between action and drama.

But here it feels as if all Harold Robbins hell has been let loose. Rather than reining in the writer, it’s as if exploitation was the only perspective. Blame Lewis Gilbert, director, and along with Michael Hastings (The Nightcomers, 1971) in his movie debut, also the screenwriter for the end result.

On the other hand, if you can leave your critical faculties at the door, you might well enjoy how utterly bad a glossy picture can be.